More kids are in special education than ever before
Plus: Tennessee slapped with class action lawsuit over institutionalization of children; and parents in Arizona extol the virtues of paid parent caregiver program
Medical Motherhood’s news round up
Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story.
• From the Tennessee Lookout: “Class action complaint accuses Tennessee Department of Children’s Services of abusing disabled kids”
The Department of Children's Services [DCS] is illegally and unconstitutionally warehousing children with disabilities in prison-like facilities, where they are pepper-sprayed, beaten and denied access to education and health care, a new class action complaint alleges.
In the sweeping 114-page legal complaint filed Wednesday in a Nashville federal court, page after page details "horrific experiences of youths trapped in (DCS) custody."
A few of them:
— A 17-year-old boy beaten more than 31 times
— A 15-year-old girl shackled, dragged across the floor and placed in a solitary cell, where she was later pepper sprayed while naked
— A single Middle Tennessee juvenile detention facility with 48 instances of pepper spraying each month
— Children left in solitary 23 hours a day, sleeping on bare bed frames in bug-infested cells with no education or mental health care provided
— multiple DCS facilities where “bounties” are used to induce kids to attack other kids, singling out those who filed grievances against staff or conditions. Ramen noodles were a popular reward for kids who beat other kids, the lawsuit noted.
“We have spent the last two years doing everything in our power to effect change to these systems, without success,” said Jack Derryberry, legal director of Disability Rights Tennessee, which is leading the legal challenge
“At this point, we have no choice but to ask the courts to step in to protect those who cannot protect themselves,” he said.
[…]There are roughly 600 to 650 youth in DCS juvenile justice custody at any one time — 1,200-1,400 in total per year; an estimated 65% to 85% live with a disability, based on national data, said Derryberry. […]
• From Disability Scoop: “Special Education Enrollment Hits All-Time High”
There are a record number of students with disabilities in the nation’s schools.
New data shows that there were 7.5 million children ages 3 to 21 served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act during the 2022-2023 school year, accounting for 15% of all students. That’s a jump from 7.3 million the year prior and represents the highest number ever.
[…]By comparison, there were just 6.4 million students with disabilities during the 2012–2013 year when 13% of schoolchildren were served under IDEA.
Even with the growth, the report notes that special education enrollment varies significantly across the states. At the high end, 21% of students have individualized education programs, or IEPs, in Pennsylvania, New York and Maine. Meanwhile, just 12% of students in Idaho and Hawaii receive IDEA services. Rates in other states fall somewhere in between. […]
• From the Cooper Courier: “Arizona’s paid parental caregiving program empowers families of disabled children”
[…]For most of Christian’s life, [Arizona mom Shauna] Newman has served as his primary caregiver while trying to earn income through non-traditional work. She found herself “suddenly single” following a divorce in 2017, which only added to the stress of financially supporting a family—including other young children—while ensuring Christian’s needs were met.
“Prior to COVID, working from home was a luxury,” she said. “I was looking for work-from-home jobs, doing online jobs, doing direct sales—doing whatever I could at the time to be able to stay home and be available without having to bring in caregivers or anything like that. That was pretty much the goal.”
Newman has since remarried, but her experience as a single parent trying to balance full-time caregiving for a disabled child while making ends meet financially pushed her to advocate for other families in similar situations. When she learned about paid parental caregiving programs in other states, she said she began to dream of a similar program for families in Arizona.
Through these state-backed programs, Newman learned, parents in Colorado and California were being compensated as full-time caregivers for their children—even completing training as certified nursing assistants (CNAs).
[…]“There was a lot of resistance. I was told, ‘Parents shouldn’t be paid to take care of their own kids. You’ll never get this changed,’” she said.
[…]Following the success of temporary funding, parents like Newman banded together to advocate for making it permanent, contacting lawmakers and circulating petitions to solidify the temporary AHCCCS program. In 2021, with funding from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the program was extended into 2024.
And earlier this year, program permanency became a reality.
Parental advocacy from organizations like the Raising Voices Coalition pushed the AHCCCS to submit a Paid Parental Caregiver proposal to the federal government that would allow parents to be compensated indefinitely for caregiving without strict limits on working hours.
[…]Under the expanded caregiving program, about 3,600 profoundly disabled children in Arizona and their families are eligible, including Newman and her son. Parental caregivers, who are compensated the same as ordinary full-time employees, must receive standard caregiving training through an agency to qualify for state funding. This route provides another benefit, Newman says, as those parental caregivers are then certified to pursue further work in the broader caregiving field.
[…]For many parents of disabled children in Arizona, the policy shift has been emotional.
“I think the biggest thought that comes to my head is definitely a relief, just the word relief,” Newman said. “Our children have a limited lifespan and we’ll probably outlive them. And so when you’re thinking about how many years you have with your child and how many years you have to worry about their care and making ends meet, it just takes that off the table. It eliminates that worry.”[…]
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